Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt

I've been banned from or chosen to leave multiple platforms. The crux of the issue: I have an incurable medical condition that I manage with diet and lifestyle. I've gotten off all the drugs I'm supposed to be on.

I get viciously attacked by others. When I complained to the mods on other platforms (not HN), I have been told their ugly attacks, in clear violation of the rules, are fine and I'm the problem.

I've been told I'm crazy. I've been told I have Munchausen, never mind that Munchausen involves faking illness for attention and my claim is I'm getting healthier. I've had people maliciously suggest that my son, who has the same diagnosis I have, is a product of incest.

I mean, this is ugly stuff. There's zero justification for some of the things that have been said to me.

I've worked hard at trying to figure out how to tread lightly, be very polite and respectful, etc. But, when all is said and done, the unforgivable offense appears to be that I'm a dirt-poor former homemaker who spent several years homeless who claims to have solved a problem that doctors and scientists can't figure out.

So, basically, speaking the truth about my life makes me persona non grata. I can find no way forward for what's an acceptable way to try to talk to people about any of this. Even without trying to promote solutions or make money from it, simply trying to talk to people in public forums about this stuff is essentially a bannable offense in many places.

I've spent years trying to not end up like Semmelweis:* committed to an asylum and dead because of it for trying to say "Hey, world, I think I know something medically useful."

I don't know what the solution is. But every time I see an article about someone being banned from a platform and saying they really don't have other options and this is a threat to their livelihood, etc, I'm extremely sympathetic. I was homeless for years and asking how I can make money online and essentially being told by a lot of people to STFU and GTFO, people who like to see themselves as good and kind and generous and making the world a better place.

This was a potentially life-threatening situation for me. This was tantamount to attempted murder by shunning.

If you have no ability to access income and everyone tries to send you away, when you run out of places to go, you know, death becomes a very real possibility.

I don't have solutions. But I'm reluctant to say "Well, those people just need to behave." What does that even mean if you can find yourself in the same shoes as them for getting healthier and trying to figure out how to discuss that with people?

* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis

Patreon want to prevent the expression of certain thoughts. For example, they are against "negative generalizations, of people based on their race". However, negative generalisations are sometimes true. For example the homicide rate in Japan is much lower than in Jamaica; from this it follows that Jamaicans are on average more homicidal than Japanese. That's a negative generalisation. It's also true.

I wouldn't mind that Patreon are censorious, if there were lots of alternatives. But that brings me to your other point:

> Centralization is the real evil, here.

This is the real problem, plus the fact that internet-based services tend to become centralised, due to network effects, high fixed costs and low variable costs.

I'm not sure what the solution is. Encouraging decentralisation seems to me a bit like trying to make water run uphill: you can do it, but it's an effort and as soon as you stop, the water just runs back downhill.

> "White people are meant to be polite and respectful to one another, and you guys can’t even act like white people, it’s really amazing to me."

That sure sounds like someone who espouses a racial ideology to me, even if he hates other people who put on the nazi emblem.

But that has no bearing on financial services (like square or visa, which are all contract carriers) or hosting companies (also contract carriers), or other things like that. ISPs are the one exception which might fit the bill of a common carrier.